Schlafly: Women need to be paid less than men so they can find good husbands

[MysticSang'ha]

Facts and Fallacies About Paycheck Fairness

Oh yes she did. She totally went there.

Another fact is the influence of hypergamy, which means that women typically choose a mate (husband or boyfriend) who earns more than she does. Men don’t have the same preference for a higher-earning mate.

While women prefer to HAVE a higher-earning partner, men generally prefer to BE the higher-earning partner in a relationship. This simple but profound difference between the sexes has powerful consequences for the so-called pay gap.

Suppose the pay gap between men and women were magically eliminated. If that happened, simple arithmetic suggests that half of women would be unable to find what they regard as a suitable mate.

Obviously, I’m not saying women won’t date or marry a lower-earning men, only that they probably prefer not to. If a higher-earning man is not available, many women are more likely not to marry at all. [...]

The best way to improve economic prospects for women is to improve job prospects for the men in their lives, even if that means increasing the so-called pay gap.

Improving economic prospects for women means to make sure men are always outearning women?

Oh, Phyllis. You never cease to get people talking.

 

[Poeticus]

Facts and Fallacies About Paycheck Fairness

Oh yes she did. She totally went there.



Improving economic prospects for women means to make sure men are always outearning women?

Oh, Phyllis. You never cease to get people talking.

My mother makes more $
than my father. They have
been married for 30+ years.​

 

[Parsimony]

So a woman will only marry a man if he earns more than she does? Love doesn't have anything to do with it? Only money? Yep. Seems legit.

 

[LuisDantas]

Eh, I totally prefer to have a mate who earned more than me.

 

[Sunstone]

Schlafly's ideas deserve to be enshrined in the Republican Party platform.

 

[Alceste]

Eh, I totally prefer to have a mate who earned more than me.

Hell yes, wouldn't practically everybody like to marry into money, provided the feelings were there? It would be icing on the cake if my husband was rich. But he's not, and it didn't even slow me down let alone stop me snapping him up.

Phyllis is an idiot. As if people are going to suddenly stop getting married because they can't find somebody who makes the exact right amount of money. Like "**** it, why bother... If I can't find a woman who makes exactly 70% of my income, I might as well die alone."

Absolutely retarded.

 

[Penumbra]

Yeah, that's pretty silly.

 

[Amechania]

She left out one important fact: women spend all their money on shoes. Any increase in salaries could adversely effects our trade balance with the Far East and could wreck our already teetering economy.

 

[Saint Frankenstein]

She should just take her argument to the logical conclusion and proclaim that all women should become gold diggers, escorts and/or prostitutes.

 

[Sunstone]

Dare I suggest Phyllis Schlafly may not be the powerhouse of sure-footed reasoning and insight that our Great Nation once so hopefully believed her to be?

 

[Father Heathen]

So this woman wants less equality for her fellow women for the sake of promoting some sort of gold digging mentality?

 

[dust1n]

I'm a sensitive artist. A female benefactor couldn't hurt.

I don't see what any guy would be against the inevitably approaching matriarchy. Dude, I don't got time to make money.

 

[Drolefille]

Evidence that women can be misogynists.

 

[Debater Slayer]

I think this is an example of how patriarchy can be a self-fulfilling prophecy: Due to pervasive notions of prescribed gender roles, many women are brought up to believe that men must be the primary breadwinners in marriages or that they should always be the "leaders" in relationships and so they are supposed to earn more than women by default. So when a society at large embraces these notions and pays women less than men for doing the same jobs, comments like those quoted in the OP (for one example) justify that by saying women won't marry men unless the latter have a higher income—something that is often perpetuated by such sexist rhetoric to begin with.

As for this:

While women prefer to HAVE a higher-earning partner, men generally prefer to BE the higher-earning partner in a relationship. This simple but profound difference between the sexes has powerful consequences for the so-called pay gap.

It just sounds absurdly thoughtless. One might as well ask why women shouldn't be paid more than men for doing the same jobs because they "prefer to HAVE a higher-earning partner," as Schlafly put it. I mean, after all, we can't really ignore this simple but profound difference between the sexes, right? And it seems just kind of arbitrarily biased to appeal to one gender's supposed preferences over the other's.

I doubt Schlafly would accept that argument for increasing pay for women, though, for some reason that I'm sure isn't abundantly clear...

 

[Alceste]

Personally, I prefer to HAVE a higher income than I currently have. I don't give a fiddler's fart what my husband IS, as long as he's happy.

 

[Alceste]

Dare I suggest Phyllis Schlafly may not be the powerhouse of sure-footed reasoning and insight that our Great Nation once so hopefully believed her to be?

What a shocker.

 

[Sand Dancer]

 

[MoonWater]

I've been with riverwolf for over 7 years now. Of those 7 years he was making money for about 1 of them while I've been making money for about 5 or 6 of them. As it stands I'm likely to be the primary breadwinner in our family for the rest of our lives, yet as I've told him, that doesn't matter to me so long as we are happy and have enough to provide for our future kids.

I'd like to know which "scholars" she's calling legitimate cause the studies out there that prove the wage gap aren't comparing all jobs together, they are comparing the same jobs to eachother. it's as absurd as those who claim children won't do well in same-sex homes and try to prove it by comparing opposite sex homes to single parent homes, cause yeah they're totally the same thing right?